Ninehighschoolteamsinthefinalsofthe2017Exo-RONationalRoverCompetition

on 22 November 2017

On 24 – 26 November 2017, nine high school teams from Romania compete in the final phase of the Exo-RO National Rover Competition at Targu Ocna, Bacau county. They will present and test the rovers they built between October and November. The competition is organised by the Romanian Space Agency (ROSA), together with the European Space Education Resource Office (ESERO) Romania, in partnership with Bacau County Council, and with the support of Targu Ocna Salt Mine and the City Hall of Targu Ocna.

“With this competition, we wish to attract Romanian high school students towards the space field and help them develop professional skills that will encourage them towards a career in the field of research, technology, engineering or maths”, says Mrs. Cristina Stancu, deputy manager ESERO Romania.

Each team has designed and built a rover that has to perform a main scientific mission which consists of navigating to a given point, and measuring the following parameters: air pressure, temperature of the environment, the difference in altitude and sending the images to the base station. Additional points will be given to teams for the way they execute the secondary scientific mission, defined by each team, which will test their skills and competence.

The evaluation of the teams will have the following criteria: educational value (20%), technical accomplishments (40%), team work and presentation of the project (10%) and field test (the track) (40%).

The field test will take place on Saturday, 25 November 2017, between 10:00 – 14:00 at Targu Ocna Salt Mine, and the final presentations and the awards ceremony on Sunday, 26 November 2017, between 10:00 – 12:00. Media representatives interested to take part in the event are asked to fill in the form available here, as access to the salt mine is limited.

”We are glad to be part of this project which encourages education. We would like to thank the experts from the Romanian Space Agency for choosing Bacau county for the Exo-RO National Rover Competition and we wish the best of luck to all participants” declared Mr. Sorin Brașoveanu, the President of the Bacau County Council.

“The Exo-RO competition promotes an inter- and trans-disciplinary approach to projects among students and their teachers, which is a very important step in better preparing our future researchers”, added Mrs. Prof. Dr. Doina Capsa.

Now at the second edition, the Exo-RO contest is an activity organised in the collaboration framework between the Ministry of National Education and the Romanian Space Agency (ROSA) with the purpose of using the concept ”cosmic space” as a creative context for teaching and learning about the fields included in the STEM area in the pre-university educational institutions in Romania.